Exercise: A Potent Healer? Help Prevent Diabetes, Heart Failure & More

So what, exactly, can exercise do for you? Why is the medical community pushing to get us to move it or lose it? Well, a little bit of exercise can go a long way when it comes to your health. Exercise burns calories, which can help you lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.
Regular exercise can help your body better respond to insulin. Exercise is known to be effective in managing blood glucose by lowering it. In fact, exercise is often effective enough in regulating blood sugar that diabetics may be able to reduce the amount of medication that they need to treat diabetes — or even eliminate the need for medication all together.
Exercise can also improve your circulation, especially in your arms and legs, where people with diabetes can suffer nerve damage and other problems.
Exercise can help reduce your cholesterol and high blood pressure. High cholesterol and high blood pressure can lead to the risk of a heart attack or stroke.
Exercise also helps reduce stress, and stress is known to cause a number of health problems.
It’s Easy to Exercise
It’s never too late to start exercising. Why not get to it right now? You might be out of shape or a little stiff, but not to worry — it’s only a matter of time before you start to slim down and firm up.
Before you begin an exercise program, though, talk to your doctor — especially if you have recently been diagnosed as having diabetes or a heart condition. Your doctor can work with you to find the kinds of exercise that are good for you depending on how well your condition is controlled.
Getting Started
If you’re planning to walk or jog, get some comfortable shoes. Get the right shoes for the activity that you have in mind. Don’t skimp on price. Your feet and joints will thank you.
Insoles are worth the money, too. Some are quite expensive, but they can help make sure that you are hitting the ground in a balanced way every time you put your foot down. This can greatly reduce wear and tear on your feet, knees, hips and back.
If you buy new shoes, break them in slowly, and watch for blisters. It’s best to wear socks with your shoes. Experiment and find which fabric works best for you. Some find that 100% cotton does the trick, while others swear by a cotton/poly blend, and still others wouldn’t dream of going for long walks without a pair of wool socks to wick away moisture.
Start your exercise regime slowly. Choose something low-impact like walking, swimming or biking. Swimming or biking is an excellent way to give your feet and knees a break from carrying around extra weight, so start there if you are worried about causing injury to your body before you start to develop new muscle — or if you already have problems with your knees or feet.
Begin with a relatively short exercise routine, and build slowly from there. Give yourself time to get stronger as you go. You can start with five minutes a day if that’s all that feels comfortable, and increase the time from there. There are no rules, and there’s no race that you need to win. Listen to your body, and stop if something feels wrong.
If you are diabetic, always wear an ID tag telling other people that you have diabetes, just in case there’s a problem while you are exercising. That way, you can get proper, efficient treatment.
Weight training can be an excellent way to strengthen your muscles and make exercise in other activities more fun and less of a tiring chore. Give it a try! However, keep in mind as you progress that it is probably best to avoid lifting very heavy weights as a precaution against sudden high blood pressure.
Three Times a Week for Good Health
Try to exercise at the same time every day for the same length of time. This will help control your blood sugar. Exercising at least three times a week for about 30 to 45 minutes is a great goal to start.
And enjoy yourself while you get in shape. Find out if you’re someone who enjoys the company of a friend when you exercise or whether you’d rather go it alone. There may also be an exercise group that meets regularly in your area, if you’d like to meet some new people and get in shape at the same time.
Exercise Helps the Heart & Knees
One of the most important organs to keep healthy on the inside of your body is undoubtedly your heart. Your heart pumps blood to all parts of your body. Unlike other muscles it never tires. The average person has five liters of blood that is constantly being circulated throughout the body. Blood pumped by the heart carries different substances to different parts of your body. Blood also helps fight germs, heal wounds and control body temperature.
All kinds of serious problems can arise when your heart becomes diseased, but what about the outside of your body? You might agree that one of the most important things to keep healthy is the knees. When your knees don’t work properly, you won’t be able to walk. What if there was something that you could do as part of your weekly routine that could help keep both your heart and your knees in working order?
Well, Australian researchers have proved that certain exercises that boost heart health also help keep knee cartilage healthy. Exercise has been a contentious issue when it comes to the knees. Some studies have concluded that exercise might, in fact, trigger knee osteoarthritis.
In the new study, Australian researchers set out to analyze how different levels of intensity, frequency and duration of exercise affected the knees. They examined 257 healthy adults, aged 50 to 79, with no prior history of knee osteoarthritis. The results of the study were published in Arthritis Care & Research. The research team reported that there was an association between physical activity and good knee health.
Vigorous activity was linked with healthier cartilage, and moderate exercise, including regular walking, was associated with lower incidence of bone-marrow lesions. Bone-marrow lesions in the knees cause pain. Lesions are also associated with the progression of osteoarthritis and loss of cartilage.
It was not clear from the study exactly how much exercise is ideal for healthy joints in the knees, even though it was clear to the researchers after reviewing the data that both exercise intensity and duration had a major positive impact on cartilage.
The researchers concluded their report with a suggestion to exercise at least 20 minutes once per week — specifically doing something that will cause you to sweat and have some shortness of breath. The researchers point out that this recommendation is similar to the recommendations for exercise that benefits heart health.3
Exercise Protects Against Osteoporosis
As many as 44 million Americans are currently at risk of developing osteoporosis. Each year, osteoporosis is the cause of 1.5 million broken bones. Osteoporosis is a silent disease. You may not have any indication that you have the condition until you experience a fracture.
Often the first sign for many that osteoporosis is taking a toll on aging bones, fractures can be painful, cause hospital stays and may not heal properly. Fractures caused by bone loss can strike any bone, but in particular, the bones of the spine, wrists and hips are vulnerable.
What causes osteoporosis to take hold? Part of the problem is that older bones simply don’t regenerate in the same way that younger bones do. As you age, your old bones regenerate as new bone mass grows. Until your mid-30s, your body does a great job of producing more bone than is removed. After this, you start to lose more bone than you’re making, which causes your bone mass to deteriorate. Because of this, osteoporosis is more likely to strike when you are older.
If you want to keep your bones healthy and cut the chances of developing osteoporosis, then exercise may be the way to do it, according to researchers at the Osteoporosis Foundation. Exercise is a great way to build and maintain bones and prevent fractures.
The report points out that exercise also improves muscle control, balance and coordination, as well as reducing the risk of falling or suffering a fracture during a fall. According to the report, recent studies show that exercise may be as important as diet when it comes to preventing the damage that’s caused by osteoporosis.
Weight-bearing and high-impact exercise are needed, the experts say, to stimulate bone formation. Lifting weights, running, sprinting, jumping and skipping are all excellent ways to get in a little weight-bearing exercise.

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